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1858 was the year of the ‘Great Stink’ when the smell of untreated sewage going into the Thames became so bad that the House of Commons stirred itself into action and the following year appointed John Bazalgette to sort the situation out by building a new sewage system.
Over the next six years a magnificent system of connected and intercepting sewers had been constructed and the days of cholera outbreaks and the foul smells that had offended and interrupted the work of Parliament were over.
Much of Bazalgette’s new construction relied on rain water periodically flushing the sewers and, to a large extent, the same applies today. So isn’t it strange that some water companies are now proposing to impose huge bills on organisations which own large buildings which shed rain water from their roofs into the sewage system? Churches in particular, because of the large surface area of their roofs, are going to be vulnerable to what is essentially a new tax.
If the sewage system still relies on rain water flushing the system through, oughtn’t logic tell us that their water bills ought to be lower?
.
1858 was the year of the ‘Great Stink’ when the smell of untreated sewage going into the Thames became so bad that the House of Commons stirred itself into action and the following year appointed John Bazalgette to sort the situation out by building a new sewage system.
Over the next six years a magnificent system of connected and intercepting sewers had been constructed and the days of cholera outbreaks and the foul smells that had offended and interrupted the work of Parliament were over.
Much of Bazalgette’s new construction relied on rain water periodically flushing the sewers and, to a large extent, the same applies today. So isn’t it strange that some water companies are now proposing to impose huge bills on organisations which own large buildings which shed rain water from their roofs into the sewage system? Churches in particular, because of the large surface area of their roofs, are going to be vulnerable to what is essentially a new tax.
If the sewage system still relies on rain water flushing the system through, oughtn’t logic tell us that their water bills ought to be lower?
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